


Finery

by Blue_Robin



Series: The Music Made Me Do It [1]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 03:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19967182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Robin/pseuds/Blue_Robin
Summary: Starting a new series...Based on songs from one of my favorite bands. I'm not sure where I'm going with it all...but it should be fun.





	Finery

The sunlight streaming through the window had just crested over the curve of Robin’s shoulder, adding a sunset glow to the smooth, pale skin bared by her vest top and highlighting the freckles dusted across it like confetti. 

He watched her, quietly, from his seat on the couch as she ran through a client consultation on the phone, her attention focused completely on the call.

He enjoyed watching her this way. The expressions on her face. The shine of her hair. The way her lips pursed as she listened and scribbled her notes.

Sighing quietly to himself, he set the laptop he’d been tapping away on to the side and stood up, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. She glanced over at him, raising a brow in question, then nodding in understanding as he pulled a cigarette from the pack. He leaned against the windowsill slightly in front of her as he inhaled, blowing the smoke out the open window.

“Yes. I think we could manage that,” she was saying, again, her attention focused on the call and not him. He was free to continue watching her animated face, the way she nodded at whatever the caller was saying, even though they couldn’t see her.

She swiveled to face her computer screen and started typing rapidly, phone cocked between her left ear and shoulder. “Um…Blonde? Thin? Bit of a fringe?” Another nod. “Yep. I think I have her here.” Another pause. “OK. If you could send along her schedule, at least as you know it, by end of day today and we’ll get started next week. Does that sound alright?”

He’d been so focused on watching her that he started when he felt heat in his fingertips. He glanced down and saw that his cigarette had burned down to the filter, unnoticed, while he’d been daydreaming about kissing that shoulder. Wondering if it would be warm from the sun.

He flicked the remains of the cigarette out the window and rubbed his fingers together to ease the sting.

“Great. We’ll touch base next week. Say a week from today?” Still looking at her computer screen she smiled and nodded and then, “Great! We’ll talk then. Have a good evening!”

She leaned over to place the phone back in its cradle before swinging around to face him with a huge smile on her face.

“Cormoran? Did you just burn your fingers on your fag?”

“Got distracted,” he shrugged.

“By?”

“Inner turmoil and angst?” he ventured.

“Ahhh. I see.” She didn’t sound as though she believed him, but with a glance at her watch she continued, “Fancy a drink? It’s closing time.”

He fancied a hell of a lot more than just a drink, but, “Sure. You ready?”

“Why don’t you go plug your laptop in and by the time you finish I will be.” She rolled her shoulders, loosening the crick in her neck from holding the phone there and set about clearing her desk off.

He scooped up his laptop from the couch and strode down the hallway to his office, depositing the laptop on the charging dock on his paper covered desk and then grabbing his keys from the hook on the wall.

As he reentered the front room, he found her still seated at her desk, but with a compact open in front of her as she traced her finger around the outside of her full lips, which he could tell had just been freshly coated with lipstick.

She pressed her lips together, sliding them against each other to smooth the fresh color, then traced them again, clearing away, what he supposed were tiny smudges, then snapped the compact closed and slipped it back into the bag on the desk.

He cleared his throat. “New color for you?” He’d never seen her wear that shade of lipstick before. It was a mix between berry and blush and brighter than her usual color.

He knew her usual color was a soft pink that enhanced the plumpness of her lower lip and made him want to suck on her top lip before nibbling away at it. But this color was the color of strawberries that had been dipped in merlot and he had a sudden vivid fantasy of that lipstick smeared across her cheek from his roving mouth.

“Yeah.” She interrupted his daydream.

He noticed color rising to the crests of her cheeks. “Ilsa forced me to get it when we went to Boots the other day.” She tucked a stray hair behind her ear and ducked her head. “She said I needed to try something new now that I’m single. Something about new makeup, new life.” She shook her head and waved a hand through the air dismissively, as though she’d forgotten the rest. “Nonsense really.”

“It’s nice,” was all he could think of in response. And it was. It changed her whole face. It made her blue grey eyes brighter, her hair redder and his mouth water with want.

He moved to the coat rack and lifted her bottle green rain jacket from the hook she’d hung it on this morning.

“Thanks.” She smiled at him as she stood and slid her arms into the jacket as he held it for her, then flipped her hair out of the collar.

He curled his fingers into his palms to prevent them from tangling in that red gold hair and tugging her head back so that he could plunder that berry slicked mouth.

He opened the door and followed her out, turning to lock the door behind them as she waited at the top of the stairs for him.

“Have any plans this weekend?” she asked as they descended to the street.

“Nick and I are supposed to meet up in his local to watch the footie. But nothing other than that. You?”

“Nope. Nothing at all.” He wondered if he was imagining that note of sadness in her voice.

“Really? You usually have something going on.” He paused as they reached the pavement, to light another cigarette.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “You know Ilsa’s out of town visiting her mum. And Van is in some profilers training class all weekend.” She said this last wistfully, as though she was slightly jealous of her friend. “So, I guess it’ll just be me and the telly this weekend.”

He only weighed his next words for a moment before releasing them, “Do you want to be?”

She glanced up at him, brows furrowed.

“Alone, I mean. Do you want to be alone this weekend?”

“I don’t know really. It’s a bit weird,” she said as she looked up at him. “Being alone now. You know?”

He nodded as he finished his cigarette and turned to open the door to the pub and allowed her to go ahead of him.

She stepped up to the bar and ordered a pint for him and a large glass of white for herself as he claimed the table in their usual corner.

She joined him almost immediately, carrying her wine and his pint, which he took from her with a “Cheers,” and a smile. He watched as she settled herself at the table, sliding her bag over the back of her chair and slipping her jacket off to hang over top of it. 

“You’ve been in London now for what…three years?” he asked as she sipped her wine. He forced himself to look away from the perfect shape of her lip stamped on the wineglass.

“Yeah. Thereabouts. Why?”

“Well surely there must be something you haven’t seen yet. Something you haven’t done.”

“Plenty of the museums definitely…but I’ve always felt like that kind of thing is much more fun when you have someone to go with.” She grinned cheekily and lowered her voice conspiratorially, “Someone to make fun of the art with.”

He chuckled. “Oh definitely.” He swallowed a gulp of his pint before saying, “You know you can call me, right?”

Her eyes flew from the coaster she’d been fiddling with in front of her, to his face. Her brows lowering in confusion.

“Robin, you do realize I’m your friend, right?”

“Well, yeah. ‘Course I do. But I didn’t…You’ve never…”

“You were engaged and then married. It wouldn’t have been right.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I know I’m not Vanessa or Ilsa, but I love London and I like making snarky comments about art.” He paused and met her eyes over the rim of her wine glass. “And you never need to be lonely.”

“Really?” She asked quietly, her voice trembling.

“Really.” He grinned at her as he lifted his glass in a mock toast, “How about we go to the National Portrait Gallery tomorrow before I meet up with Nick? We can wander around and make up stories about all of the subjects.”

“I’d love that.” The smile she gave him was one of his favorites, bright and cheerful and full of her light. “Thank you Cormoran.”

“Any time. Seriously.”

“You say that now…but you just wait until I make you go with me to the Fashion and Textile Museum,” she teased as she stood up to get their second round.

He chuckled while pointing at himself, “Son of a model. Remember?”

As she walked back to the bar, he thought to himself that there wasn’t anywhere he wouldn’t go if she asked him to.

This weekend was starting to look up.

**Author's Note:**

> Starting a new series...Based on songs from one of my favorite bands. I'm not sure where I'm going with it all...but it should be fun.


End file.
